Post-Function "Perform as User" changes - 01 November 2021

What is changing?

The “default user” (ie. The user account used to run saved post-functions where the “Perform as User” field was left empty) is changing to the “JSU Add-On User”. When creating a new post-function, the “Perform as User” field now cannot be empty, the pre-selected option will be the “JSU Add-On User”, but this can be changed to another choice.

What is the difference between the “JSU Add-On User” and any other user?

This ultimately depends on the permissions configured on your own instance. When choosing a user account to run a post-function, the user account specified must have the appropriate permissions to perform the actions of the post-function e.g. create issue, add comment.

The “JSU Add-On User” account is added to an instance automatically when JSU is installed and already has the required permissions to perform all actions across JSU Post-Functions. As long as the permissions haven’t been manually removed from the “JSU Add-On User”, there should be no impact of it being the “Perform as User” instead of another account.

When the “JSU Add-On User” makes changes to issues, you can see the changes made in the Activity section of the issue, it will look like this:

Open

How will this work?

Currently, if you have a post-function already saved to a workflow where the “Perform as User” field was left unchanged, then this post-function will by default run as the “Initiating User” (ie. the user who performed the transition). After the change, this post-function will run as the “JSU Add-On User”.

When you are editing an existing, or creating a new post-function - the “Perform as User” field now cannot be empty, you can choose from “JSU Add-On User”, “Initiating User” or search for any other Atlassian Account on the instance as you currently can.

The graphic below illustrates the slight changes to how the field will be displayed and the behaviour of any saved post-functions.

Why are we making this change?

We regularly engage with our users to understand how the product is used and where we can look to make improvements. The “Perform as User” was highlighted as an area of confusion for a number of reasons including:

• Some users didn’t know whether they could leave the field blank or had to select an option as the default text also was “Select user”

• The current help-text besides the field is misleading, it currently says “The post-function will be ran as this user. If left blank, the post-function will be ran as the JSU Add-On User.”

  • Whereas if left blank the post-function is - and always has - ran as the Initiating User - this understandably also confused users

• The current “Perform as User” field:

Open

• When wanting to test a post-function, the majority of users wanted to see in the issue history/logs that “JSU” was indeed performing actions that they expected to see as a result of their post-function. This was never possible because the “JSU Add-On User” user was never a selectable user and all issue history was appearing as themselves (ie. the initiating user).

• This change intends to remove the above confusion and gives further choice and flexibility to admins for how they want their post-functions to run

When will this change happen?

This change is planned to go live for all users effective Monday 1st November 2021. If this date changes to a later date this page will be updated accordingly.

Where can I ask questions?

Please feel free to contact us through our usual support channels and we’ll be happy to assist.